The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in Mendocino. Between
the ragings of the ocean and the cool dampness washing over the sand duned
seaside cliffs and days upon days without a hint of sunshine, I near froze to
death in the middle of June.
It was 1971 and I was 16 years old going on 30. I'd been drifting west ever
since leaving my home in Illinois in the back of a pick up truck with $54 in my
pocket and an old beat-up acoustic guitar strapped to my back. I hadn't a lick
of sense but by god I was going to make it big in California. I didn't like big
cities though so when I picked my destination I chose a little town on the
northern coast called Mendocino. I liked the name.
I lied about my age to the man who owned the place and got a gig playing in
between acts at the only watering hole in town at that time. Customers there
were mostly hippies and biker types who liked the easy going style I'd grown up
playing by imitating Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie. There
was always a smell of marijuana in the air. I loved it.
I didn't make anything playing but if I put out my black cowboy hat on the
stage the customers would sometimes throw some spare change into it and
sometimes even a dollar bill or two. One night I found a fiver in there and I
was in heaven... I could rent a motel room for $5 and take a shower and sleep
in a bed instead of out in the sand dunes by the ocean where I usually slept.
I read in the local newspaper of a rodeo in the next big town down the pike (at
least I remember it being the next big town down) called Fort Bragg. The ad
said they'd pay anyone $100 to ride a bull for 10 seconds. I thought, hell, I
can stay on a bull for that long. So I hitched a ride up there for the weekend,
bringing along my sleeping bag, my guitar, and a small backpack that contained
everything I owned in the whole world.
I got to the rodeo grounds late Friday afternoon. There were cowboys everywhere
and more showing up all the time. There was a tent set up in a clearing of
trees with a table underneath the tent and a sign blowing in the wind that
said: All Riders -- Sign Up Here. So I walked up there and told the pretty
woman behind the table that I wanted to sign up to ride the $100 bull.
She smiled at me and handed me a paper and told me to read it and sign at the
bottom. It was a disclaimer in case I got hurt. She asked if I had any
experience and I lied and told her yes, I did. I told her I worked on a ranch
about fifty miles to the east. She nodded and handed me a white flag with a
black number on it to tie on my back and told me to be there at noon tomorrow.
After signing up for the bull ride, I wandered around the camp. There was a
barrel of beer surrounded by bags of ice and a stack of cups beside it. I
watched several cowboys walk up to it and draw themselves glasses of beer, then
walk off. I figured it must be free so I went over and helped myself too. After
3 or 4 glasses of beer I started to feel pretty good about my chances tomorrow.
But then I walked down to where they kept the bulls.
Holy Christ in Heaven I'd never seen such vicious and ornery animals in my
life. Mean-looking little kids were poking at the bulls' rumps with long sharp
sticks and those bulls were red-eyed and furious, which just made the kids poke
at them all the more. Those animals were bucking and broncing and snorting and
prancing around just looking for something to stomp into the ground and kill. A
group of cowboys were sitting on a nearby tree stump laughing at the sight. I
damn near died right then and there.
I didn't sleep well that night. I'd drank too much free beer and the whole
world was spinning and there was cold wind blowing that my sleeping bag
wouldn't keep at bay. I got up and puked several times. It made me feel a
little better but still not good. I woke at dawn with a horrible headache and a
foul taste in my mouth that brushing my teeth wouldn't wash away. I wandered
around camp until I saw a table with food on it. When no one was looking I
grabbed a couple donuts and a cup of black coffee and slunk off to eat, hoping
I could keep it down.
By 9am I was feeling considerably better. I walked over to the corral holding
the flag the pretty woman had given me the day before. An old grizzled looking
cowboy with snow white hair sitting at the table where she'd sat looked me up
and down and said: where's your chaps? I said, huh? He said: you can't ride one
of them bulls without your chaps. I said, I forgot them. He shook his head and
I thought that was the end of it but he slowly got up and waved a hand for me
to follow him.
We walked to the area where the travel trailers were parked. He opened the door
to one of the seediest looking ones and walked inside. I followed him. He said:
wait here a minute. And he disappeared into the back behind a drawn curtain. I
heard a woman's voice but I couldn't hear what she was saying. In a minute the
old cowboy emerged holding a set of leather chaps, badly worn but serviceable.
He said: put those on. Keep you from getting burned by bull hair and make it
easier to slide off him if you make it that far. So I pulled them on over my
pants and tied them off. Then he handed me a leather vest and said: put that on
too. I did as he said.
Do you have any money? he asked me. I didn't. Maybe some change. What's that
you got there? My guitar, I said. Wanna trade? he asked. I really didn't, but
man, looking at myself in the full length mirror on the trailer door, I sure
looked like a cowboy. All I needed was some boots. So I said: throw in those
boots and you got a deal. He took them off and handed them to me and I gave him
my guitar. They were tight but they fit. It occurred to me that it was a poor
trade but I sure did look like a cowboy.
As we were walking back to the corral, the old cowboy asked me if I knew what I
was doing. I said, no. But I needed that $100. He told me that I couldn't think
of the bull as something I was going to ride, otherwise I'd get thrown and
likely as not get hurt and on top of all that I wouldn't get any money for my
trouble.
The old cowboy told me I had to be the bull. I had to feel all the rage, all
the hatred, all the pain that the bull was feeling. For ten seconds, that had
to be my world. Nothing else would exist. He told me that if I could do that,
I'd win that $100. Take this, he told me, and handed me a little piece of what
looked like cellophane. Put it under your tongue, he said. Go on. It'll help
you ride better. So I did.
By then it was nearly noon. I walked over to the corral, hung the flag from my
neck, and got in the bull riding line. There were four cowboys in front of me.
I was glad to be able to watch someone else try and ride that bull first before
climbing on myself. I didn't realize we'd each get our own bull.
Everything seemed to be taking on extraordinary meaning. I could feel the
gritty ground under my feet giving reluctant way as I walked closer to the bull
pen. Colors seemed to become much brighter and the smell of the bulls much more
robust. I felt like a balloon slowly inflating and deflating with each breath I
took and there was the sound of waterfalls and helicopters overhead.
When I got on the bull it shifted in its pen and pinned my right leg against
the fence, hard. I felt my knee dislocate but then the bull shifted again and I
felt it pop back in. I had my right hand wrapped tightly around a rope which
was itself wrapped tightly around the bull. I was a bump on the bull's back,
nothing more. My hand felt as if it were elongating like a piece of rubber as I
hugged myself into the bull.
A bell rang and the gate opened. I saw the ground rushing up at me but suddenly
I was yanked back up by that rubber arm still attached to the rope. I had my
balance. I could feel it. I had watched the other riders and the good ones
always found their balance.
There was just the bull... everything else disappeared. Time itself stopped. It
was like slow motion only fluid. A buzzer was going off in my head then a
strong hand had hold of the back of my shirt lifting me off the bull. At that
moment the bull turned and lurched. I saw it all unfolding and tried to parry
the blow but it caught me in the ribs with a blunted but still very sharp horn.
Then I was on the ground and the crowd was cheering me. I hammed it up and
waved my hat before walking back to the sidelines.
The leather vest absorbed most of the blow. I thought the bull's horn just
bumped me hard but then I felt something trickling into my right boot. I
realized I'd been gouged as my vest was ripped. A doctor at the medical tent
stitched it up. I didn't want him to but he said it needed stitches. Each poke
of the needle brought exquisite pain even though he'd deadened the wound with
novocain. The doctor said if not for the vest I'd of been hurt a lot worse.
Later that night there was a dance and I had a brand new hundred dollar bill in
my pocket. Several very pretty girls all seemed to be looking my way. One
especially pretty little cowgirl came over and asked me if I'd like to dance.
Later she rode me till the birds were twittering. That morning I hitched a ride
back east with a family going to Idaho. I didn't have a guitar and I couldn't
think of a reason to go back to Mendocino.
But I still like the name.
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